Unknown shooters, shocking turns and brutal collisions: the cliffhanger gets dangling

Two shots, a shooter out of the picture and an equally loved as a hated TV character that sinks through his knees. On March 21, 1980 the American soap series wrote Dallas Television history with a single scene of less than a minute. That evening Jr Ewing (Larry Hackman), the villain of the popular TV series, was shot. Whoever had persuaded the tractor was the big question. JR had so many enemies that even his own mother, Miss Ellie, was a credible suspect.

It was a mystery that America, and the rest of the world, eventually occupied for months. Actor Hackman adorned many magazine cover, from the renowned Time to the gossip leaf People. The recently launched CNN paid full attention to the phenomenon, also to get some air in a schedule that was further swallowed up by economic malaise and the hostage in Iran. Companies jumped in with special bumper stickers and beer cans that could be shot, just like JR. And the question “Who shot jr?” – Cleverly conceived by an advertising agency commissioned by television channel CBS – was so pressing that even the mother of the British Queen Elizabeth, Hackman, asked during a meeting if he wanted to reveal her the answer (he didn’t want that).

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“Who shot jr?” Was not the first cliffhanger on television. American soap series that had to keep the housewives glued to the tube during the day, the storyteller has been using for decades before Dallas it did. Just like Campy Series Batman.

And far before there was television, stories cast in serial forms (on the radio, in comics, in the early cinema, in novels such as Charles Dickens that were published in parts in newspapers and far before that in the Thousand and one night-Stories) Afwits their chapters with an exciting, unsolved moment that the listener, viewer or reader had to stimulate so that they would return to find out how it ended. The term cliffhanger even comes from 1873, from a fairly unknown novel by Thomas Hardy who is in parts in British Tinsley’s Magazine was published in which a beloved of the main character threatens to fall from an abyss.

Solution after 26 years

But Dallas Was the first to do it so successfully on television. So much so that the cliffhanger has been indispensable since then of the small screen. “Who shot jr?” inspired some of the most memorable moments in television history. Van Ross who said “I take tea rachel” in Friends, Jon Snow he in Game of Thrones before he stayed back after he was stabbed by his own men, Sherlock Holmes who in Sherlock not died anyway, Mr. Burns who – following JR – was shot by an anonymous shooter in The Simpsons to Eleanor who in The Good Place Discovered that she was actually in the ‘Bad Place’.

David Lynch also ended the second season of Twin Peaks With Dale Cooper who turned out to be possessed (a cliffhanger that would only be resolved 26 years later when the series returned with a third season). And the cliffhanger with which The Sopranos Ended, and who left the fate of protagonist Tony Soprano in the dark, is still dangling and will probably never get a follow -up.

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In the Netherlands, the cliffhanger is equal to Good times, bad times. The soap series has been treating the viewers for decades every spring to a shocking event in the last minutes before the summer break. An unforeseen plot twist that – if possible – turns everything upside down. They call him the ‘summer cliff’ at the long -running soap series, says creative producer Idse Grotenhuis. He describes the moment as a gift for the viewers. “We always put a little more time and effort into it,” he says on the phone. “A little away from the cardboard decors the studio. This year, for example, we went abroad again. And a few years ago we deposited a provincial road in the east of the country for a whole night to put a chain collision with eight cars in scene.”

Viewers’ peak gtst

According to Grotenhuis, the Summer Cliff is one of the highlights of the entire season and, just like the ending after summer, provides a viewer peak as standard. “We have often been writing there for months and it can still influence the storylines for the season that comes next for a long time.” The summer cliff of this year, which can already be seen on Videoland and will be broadcast on RTL4 on Thursday and in which the entire Sanders family is central, is in the making all season. Grotenhuis: “We have given small hints for a while, which was fully speculated on the Socials. Only in recent weeks did the story have gained momentum.”

In addition to the chain collision a few years ago, which, according to Grotenhuis, was greatly appreciated by the viewers, ended Good times, bad times The season earlier with a fatal parachute jump, a main character who was buried alive, a big fire and even with a character dangling above a abyss. “We liked that then,” says Grotenhuis. “We thought: let’s take that cliffhanger literally.”

Streamers

As old as the cliffhanger is, the arrival of the streaming services has of course had an influence on it. Thanks to the Binge model introduced by Netflix, where all episodes of seasons come out in one go, every episode suddenly got an exciting, open end-so that the viewer would click directly on the ‘next episode’ button. In addition, the eagerness with which Streamers has scraped series that do not attract enough viewersmeanwhile taken for many unsolved cliffhanger. But above all, the current way in which series are released requires a lot of patience from the viewer. Recently, fans had to wait almost three years before they knew how the main characters are in Severance would perish after the nerve -racking final moments of the first, praised season.

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In 1980 it finally took seven months before the world was relieved of its suffering (a writer’s strike in Hollywood and Larry Hackmans, hard -to -hard salary negotiations caused a delay). But in the episode with the appropriate title ‘Who Done it’, it was revealed that JR’s sister -in -law Kristin (Mary Crosby) was the perpetrator (she turned out to wear his child, he therefore decided not to sue her).

The episode attracted three hundred and fifty million viewers worldwide and is therefore still one of the best-watched episodes of a TV series ever.

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